Snapfish launches 'magic' photo books

Automatic layouts take the stress out of printing snaps

Snapfish today launched a range of new features aimed at getting more digital images printed from more devices.

It's proudest of Magic Layouts, a feature that automatically resizes and repositions portrait and landscape images about to fit on a page.

Once a user has chosen images, they simply hit a Shuffle button to create a new layout, with all images retaining their aspect ratios. There's also a new Undo button to track up to 10 changes.

Phone to print

Two new apps aim to bring more to Snapfish in the first place. There's an iPhone app that allows users to upload one (or more) grainy cameraphone snaps at a time, and they can also browse images online. Snapfish offers unlimited storage of images, so could be an option if your iPhone is getting full up with apps, music and those grainy cameraphone snaps. Naturally, you can order prints and photo books, too.

Facebook gets a Snapfish app, too, which allows you to print images from your Facebook albums. Snapfish also announced new photo loaders, with an Apple iPhoto plug-in and a faster Express Upload service for web-based uploading.

Finally, and somewhat illogically, HP announced the HP Photosmart Premium All-in-One, a touchscreen printer that has one-touch access to Snapfish via Wi-Fi, allowing you to postpone printing images at home and instead wait a few days for them to appear through the letterbox instead. It's not clear yet whether you can also grab images from albums online and print them locally. The Photosmart Premium All-in-One is available in the US now for $200 (£125).